Heat Tool

At the beginning of April I purchased the most amazing tool ever. It was sold as a tool that burns wood 'Pyrography Wood burning Tool Pyromaster Dual Heat' I bought it from Antex.  It came with 18 different tips. It has other uses apart from making marks on wood. Some of the tips can be used for cutting and bonding synthetic fabric; this is really useful as it stops the fabric from fraying as the heat melts and bonds the fibres together. I have used it to etch photographs, this is really effective and gives the photography a completely new look. I am also going to try printing with an etched photograph as I feel the etching is deep enough to leave a mark on the gelli-plate. Watch this space...

But my all time favourite thing I can do with the heat tool is cut stencils!!! I use acetate/transparency film to make my stencils. I would normally use a craft knife to cut the design out but after a short while it would hurt my finger, using this heat heat tool it makes it so much easier and I can't believe how much quicker it is too. I am so pleased with it. I am sure I will find other uses for it!

Cut Print Stamp

This post is very over due and I thought with Spring on its way I need to tidy up my list of posts to write and get on and write them!

Before Christmas (see I said it was over due) I entered into a competition over on the Gelli Arts blog and to my surprise I won! Thank you to Gelli Arts and to Princeton Brushes for running the competition. The competition was to win a selection of Catalyst Wedges, these can be used on the Gelli Plate. I had been eyeing these up in my local art shop but they are quite pricey so I thought to myself I would treat myself in the new year. In the mean time I purchased a couple of silicon spatulas and a silicon brush from the supermarket, they were on sale (£1.50) and I thought it is good to experiment and when I upgrade to the ones from the art shop I could use them in the kitchen. These worked OK but they were a bit awkward because of the handles, they weren't to easy to swish around! The brush however is fab to use on the Gelli Plate and creates some cool textures. So when my prize arrived I was very happy and got printing straight away.

These are the the three wedges that I won, there are six different wedges in their range. You can see the different ones here over on their site.

The monoprints below were created on my Gelli Plate and I used the Catalyst Wedges for the mark making, as well as using stencils and rubber stamps. The wedges fit into your hand nicely and they are easy to swish around.

Cut Print Stamp

Here are the latest cards that I have made. These three have all been made using my monoprints and cut-out flowers. I really like the colours I have used for these cards. I particularly like the one on the right-hand side, I like the way the red works with the teal. To make these I cut the larger flowers out by hand, I have made my own flower stencil that I draw around on the back of the monoprint, then I cut the flowers out using a scalpel. The smaller flowers are created using a paper punch.